Clara Ell claims she was assaulted in her dorm room in Corrado Hall. “I’ll continue to speak out to elicit change” on campus, she said.

Clara Ell has long felt sexual abuse and sexual assault needed more attention; one of the reasons the University of Portland freshman intends to major in social work and psychology is to help victims of such crimes.

But on the evening of Sept. 30, Ell says she became a victim herself. After drinking heavily at a party, Ell claims she was raped in her dorm by a male classmate. Turning to her university for support and justice, Ell says she found neither.

Catholic Youth Organization just completed another season of Fall Hot Shots Nov. 12 with an end-of-season tournament for first- and second-grade basketball players. Each child was given an individual medal and each of the 20 teams was awarded a trophy for participation.Thursday, December 8, 2016

Archbishop Alexander Sample and future archbishops of Portland will live in a 3,500-square-foot wooden house to be built on the edge of Mount Calvary Cemetery. Including its chapel, the house will be about a third of the size of the Northwest Portland building archbishops have occupied since the mid-1980s.

“There is a lot of wasted space,” Archbishop Sample says of the residence next to St. Mary Cathedral.

There will be a cord rosary-making workshop from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday, Dec. 10, at the Marian Prayer Center. Cost is $20 for materials and instructional handouts. Call (503) 583-3723 to register (required) and for more information.

In the days after the presidential election, many Americans felt disillusioned and took to the streets in protest. Most demonstrators were peaceful, including in Oregon. But some Portland protesters turned chaotic, and police made more than 100 arrests.

Archbishop Alexander Sample, at a U.S. bishops’ meeting in the nation’s capital, sent a statement back to Oregon seeking calm.

“While peaceful protest and standing up for our own views have been hallmarks of the American experience and our First Amendment rights, some of these demonstrations have turned destructive and violent,” the archbishop wrote.

The Catholic Sentinel, official newspaper for the Archdiocese of Portland, returned to the archdiocesan offices in September after 30 years away.

The move is meant to consolidate communications efforts for the local church. The Sentinel — along with its sister publication, El Centinela — is now a few steps from the archdiocese’s communications office, with capacity for recording audio and video.

Pro-life advocates, including many Catholics, stood up in public to back their cause, no matter the weather.

The 40 Days for Life vigils held in Portland and Eugene came to a conclusion Nov. 6 after a long-term peaceful presence outside sites where abortions are performed. Activists prayed and fasted as part of the campaign.

Archbishop Alexander Sample on the day before Thanksgiving issued a statement on behalf of the Archdiocese of Portland supporting Gov. Kate Brown’s decision to continue a moratorium on executions in Oregon.Wednesday, November 23, 2016

The St. Vincent de Paul employee treks to restaurants and cafeterias at places like the University of Portland to glean excess food. He brings the grub to the new St. Vincent de Paul headquarters and repackages it for distribution to people in need.

With tears in her eyes, Teresa Rodríguez of St. Anne Parish in Gresham stood inside a new shrine to Our Lady of Guadalupe at the Grotto in Northeast Portland. A native of Guatemala, she has a lifelong devotion.Saturday, November 19, 2016

Barbara Kennedy remembers the moment her career as a nurse crystalized into the sacred.

She was working at the San Diego Hospice in the 1990s when police brought in a dying man, a “John Doe” they’d found beneath a bridge. He was unable to speak coherently and had no identification.

Kennedy remembers how she and three other nurses dropped what they were doing to care for the man. They got his pain under control; they bathed and shaved him. They gently told him he wasn’t alone, that the angels were watching out for him.

SALEM — With the closure of the Cavazos Center for Hispanic Youth and Families in Salem, Catholic Community Services Foundation and Mano a Mano have formed a coalition to serve Latino youths and their families.Tuesday, November 15, 2016

Archbishop Alexander Sample has released a statement regarding the unrest following the presidential election. He writes, "While peaceful protest and standing up for our own views have been hallmarks of the American experience and our First Amendment rights, some of these demonstrations have turned destructive and violent. One such place where this has happened is sadly right here in our own city of Portland...."Tuesday, November 15, 2016

They came from across western Oregon, pens, notebooks and rosaries in hand, slightly tired on a Friday night but eager to roll up their sleeves and re-energize and refocus their parish work. The Archdiocese of Portland Pastoral Assembly, held Nov. 4-5 at St. Pius X Parish in Portland, drew more than 300 lay parish leaders and pastors and called for unity with an emphasis on the new evangelization.Monday, November 14, 2016

The Catholic Campaign for Human Development Collection is Nov. 19 and 20, the weekend before Thanksgiving. Auxiliary Bishop Peter Smith has asked all parishes in the Archdiocese of Portland to participate.

“We Christians are called to confront the poverty of our brothers and sisters, to touch it, to make it our own and to take practical steps to alleviate it,” Bishop Smith said, citing Pope Francis.

A relic of St. John Paul II will tour the Archdiocese of Portland Nov. 8-18. The first-class relic is a vial of blood authenticated by Archbishop Stanislaw Dziwisz of Krakow, Poland.Tuesday, November 8, 2016

HAPPY VALLEY — Construction crews will break ground Nov. 7 on a new Catholic funeral home and cremation site at Gethsemani Cemetery here.

The inaugural Archdiocese of Portland-run ministry will have a two-part mission: First, serve families facing a death. Second, provide a model to Catholics and to other funeral homes of how to be faithful to church teaching when it comes to funerals.

Early in 2017, the U.S. Catholic Church will begin a nationwide consultation on the faith and life of Hispanic Catholics. Bishops have sent teams to be trained for the fifth national Encuentro, or encounter.Monday, October 31, 2016

Regional Knights of Columbus groups are organizing to stand in front of the Northeast Portland Planned Parenthood facility on Martin Luther King Boulevard. This Portland Life Chain will take place Oct. 30 from 2:30 p.m. to 4 p.m.Friday, October 28, 2016

Fear and loneliness. These are emotions commonly felt by Catholics going through a divorce.

There’s fear of judgement. There’s fear of the change that the death of a marriage brings. There’s the accompanying loneliness. And, there’s the assumption that the change has to be endured without support from a church community.

Oregon tends to lead the pack in causes favored by some wings of the political left — legal abortion, assisted suicide, gay marriage, recreational marijuana.

Some fear that next on the progressive docket could be tax exemption for churches and the right of church agencies to operate according to their ancient beliefs, especially in the dignity of life and marriage.

WASHINGTON — The military operation to liberate the Iraqi city of Mosul from the Islamic State group is not the only solution needed to get life back to normal, said Iraqi Archbishop Bashar Warda of Irbil.

Catholic Relief Services and Mount Angel Seminary have formed a partnership to cultivate a deeper concern for the impoverished and disadvantaged overseas within the minds and hearts of one-day priests.Saturday, October 22, 2016

This summer, students from St. Stephen Academy, a Christian school in Lake Oswego, spent days at Providence St. Vincent Medical Center painting a mural on the wall near the inpatient pharmacy.Saturday, October 22, 2016

ST. BENEDICT — With the regrettable exception of the Galileo case, the Catholic Church has accepted and supported scientific research and discovery for centuries.

Modern science emerged and was sustained in a Catholic culture. Some of the great scientists of the Renaissance and Enlightenment were clerics and religious, including the Franciscan friar Roger Bacon. A priest invented genetics.